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Monday, February 27, 2012

What would you do?

What would you do?

Well I heard it straight from a Samoan’s mouth…what I am doing is wrong and disgusting.

What happened was a fly fell into my drink. I did the sensible thing and scooped it out and continued drinking…then a fly fell into the Samoan’s drink….and he refused to fish it out or drink it! When I asked why, he said it was because flies carry diseases and he didn’t want to get sick. Although the reasoning made complete sense to me, I still considered it wasteful to waste a perfectly good drink because of one measly fly. I mean flies are everywhere, you can’t really stop them from landing on your food, unless you have an amazing person to fan the food, how is a drink much different?

I brought this up with some of my fellow family members, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) and asked them what they would do. They all responded the same way as me as they said it seemed wasteful.

Being a volunteer here we have eaten what feels like every insect under the sun as it somehow falls into our food. We continue to eat it, because otherwise who knows where our next meal will be. It isn’t as if the insects really add a flavor to the food and you usually can block it out of your mind. By the time you are here for a long time, you never question the disgusting (or even spoiled food) things that might be entering your mouth.

One on the RPCV’s told me that he has been disgusted with the amount of food that falls on the floor and is just thrown away. It is still perfectly good in his eyes and it just seems wasteful.

Maybe after several years in a different country with different standards of what is “right” and “wrong” we have become a little warped…

2 comments:

If I saw a fly land in my drink and was able to fish it out right away I'd do so and continue drinking. Same with food - I'd pick the fly off and any small bit of food the fly came into contact with. However, if I didn't see the fly land in drink or food and had no idea how long it'd been there I'd probably toss it all. Been there, done that. Uati BTW - Great job!

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